Two questions about Dual Channeling

[luciddreams]

(1) According to its manufacturer, my motherboard (MSI K7N2 Delta-L) "Support Dual channel PC3200/2700/2100/1600 DDR SDRAMs." Curious, if I purchased 2 x PC4000 then could I still Dual Channel?

(2) I know dual channeling is fast, but how fast is it compared to equal RAM in a single channel? This is, which is faster, 1GB single channel or 2x512MB dual channel?

Thanks for your help!

 

[JSSheridan]

1) Yes.

2) Dual channel is always as fast or faster than single channel RAM of equal amount. The difference is typically 5% but as large as 15% or as small as 0%.

Peace.

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: JSSheridan
1) Yes.

2) Dual channel is always as fast or faster than single channel RAM of equal amount. The difference is typically 5% but as large as 15% or as small as 0%.

Peace.

depends on whether it's AMD or Intel, for Intel it can be greater than 15%, for AMD it's typically much smaller.

 

[JSSheridan]

That's right jagec. That is an AMD motherboard that he is using though, and my answer was targeted at him.

 

[luciddreams]

Hmm... I see. So as I understand, given that I have an AMD motherboard, 2x512 will surely be faster than 1x1G; however, the difference will range from slightly noticeable to not noticeable at all, correct?

Well, at any rate I suppose the small price difference more than justifies the expense.

Thanks!

 

[blodhi74]

Originally posted by: luciddreams
(1) According to its manufacturer, my motherboard (MSI K7N2 Delta-L) "Support Dual channel PC3200/2700/2100/1600 DDR SDRAMs." Curious, if I purchased 2 x PC4000 then could I still Dual Channel?

(2) I know dual channeling is fast, but how fast is it compared to equal RAM in a single channel? This is, which is faster, 1GB single channel or 2x512MB dual channel?

Thanks for your help!

1: yes

2: depends on the application ..... overall sys performance is b/t 5% to 15% but is games it can be greater

 

[Ken90630]

As stated by blodhi74, a lot depends on the applications, and even more depends on whether you're using integrated graphics or a video card. With an add-in video card, you will not see much difference at all except with some comparatively obscure (to me, anyway) apps. See This article, page 2 -- I think it will give you a good feel for how this shakes out with a video card. And page 6 is where you'll find the integrated graphics performance results.

With integrated graphics is where you're more likely to see tremendous gains: up to 56% (!) in Unreal Tournament and similarly striking gains in other games, according to the above-linked article. I personally don't game at all, so such things mean nothing to me; for those who do, however, and do so with integrated graphics, running in dual-channel mode looks like a no-brainer. :thumbsup:

This (and the article) is predicated on you using the nVidia nForce 2 chipset, which I assume you are. I can't speak to how dual channel shakes out with integrated video with other chipsets.

Check out that article. It helped me when I was wondering the same thing. (And kudos to mechBgon for clueing me in on it.)

Good luck!